


i've never felt nothing like that

by rosewitchx



Series: "it's a hoot that you don't get why we need this." [7]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: ...sorta, Adoption, Bad Parenting, Dating, Depression, Dorks in Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fire, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, He's a dad, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Movie Night, Multi, Oscars, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Tony Stark, Self-Harm, She Too is a Mom, Star Wars References, Teenagers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator, fake deep conversations at 3am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 09:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14161794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewitchx/pseuds/rosewitchx
Summary: Sometimes, MJ feels like the world is sort of too much.Enter Shuri.





	i've never felt nothing like that

**Author's Note:**

> hey the self harm thing is kinda graphic so pls be careful!!! don't want none of yall hurting urselves

Sometimes, MJ feels like the world is sort of too much.

Sometimes, her chest feels heavier than lead, her soul crushing her against the concrete of the streets. Her hands will shake more than they use to when she rides the bus home, and she can't make eye contact, and she wants to scream and yell and snap at everyone. And she wants to cry. Because Peter doesn't deserve that, Ned doesn't deserve that,  _Shuri_ doesn't deserve that.

Just because she's messed up doesn't mean others have to deal with her bullshit.

So, on those awful days, she reaches home, locks her bedroom door, flops onto the bed and closes her eyes. 

 

 

She doesn't think it'll get too bad. When she starts, her father has just screamed at her for cleaning the dishes the  _wrong_ way (what is the right way? what is she doing wrong? he won't tell her, nobody will) and she's not thinking straight. When she starts, it's just the tiniest of cuts on her heels. Like Achilles, she thinks. That'll be her weak spot, so she can be invincible. No one has to see, no one has to know. It won't go past that.

Except tiny cuts just won't do anymore, she decides months later, after a bad fight with Peter. She doesn't have any friends besides him and Ned. She totally fucked it up, didn't she? She's a mess. And tiny cuts won't do, because she doesn't make tiny mistakes, she makes huge mistakes that devour everything in their path.

So she goes deeper. Switches the school scissors for an old crafting knife. And soon her weak spot isn't just her heel.

By the time junior year rolls around, she's constantly wearing flannel and jackets to school, even if it's so hot outside you could melt. And even if Peter asks about it, even if Ned glances at her with worry; she shrugs it off and keeps moving.

They wouldn't get it, anyway. Peter's a hero, he saves people on a daily basis and is basically a junior  _Avenger_. He's got a loving aunt, a genius father figure and a bunch of superheroes as a surrogate family. And Ned's happy being his guy in the chair, his boyfriend, and he's got a great family too, and they get great grades despite it all and all she has is greasy skin and long sleeves and— how the hell could she want anything more?

 

 

There's a fire. No one knows how it started. It kills twelve people and Spider-man saves fifteen other, then vanishes for a while. People think maybe he was wounded during the rescue, but MJ knows better. 

May's death is so sudden and unexpected, and Peter misses school for a week. He doesn't call them, Ned's worried sick: what's gonna happen to them? What's gonna happen to Peter? 

He knocks at her window one night. He's not wearing his suit, just a gray hoodie and jeans, but he looks so empty and tired that she just lets him crash in for the night.

(She texts Ned to let him know.)

They sit on the floor in silence. Peter sometimes sniffs and hides underneath his hoodie. MJ wishes she could go out and get him something to drink, some tea, but if she starts making noises her dad will wake up and get angry and she doesn't want Peter to see that. So she just pulls a chocolate chip cookie from the box inside her pillow, tears open the wrapper and hands it to her friend.

They eat it and he leans on her shoulder. "Mr. Stark said he'd take me in," he whispers. She nods at this. 

"That's good," she tells him. He shrugs, rubbing his face.

"Dunno."

It's quiet again. She lets Peter sleep; she gets the feeling he hasn't rested properly in a while.

And then he says: "do you ever feel like a... like a burden?"

MJ doesn't reply, and that's enough of an answer for him.

Peter leaves by dawn.

 

 

Tony Stark has a press conference. He's adopted Peter Parker, who's widely known as his intern and has recently lost his last living relative. 

Slowly, as the weeks go by and the media calms down, things get better for him.

MJ pretends things are getting better for her too.

 

 

Peter's invited her and Ned to the Compound. They're gonna watch  _all_ of the Oscar nominations (even though they really should be studying for that chemistry midterm coming up soon), starting with  _Call Me By Your Name,_ because Ned and Peter are saps that don't see the bigger picture (aka  _The Shape Of Water_ , MJ's  _certain_ it's gonna win). But he's caught up in experiments, there in the backroom with Tony Stark and whatnot, and MJ and Ned decide to wait for him anyway.

When he returns, bouncing on the  _ceiling,_ he's followed by a girl.

"Ned, MJ," Peter starts, frantically, because he's excited and he's like a goddamn puppy when he's excited, "this is Shuri, she's really cool, she  _kicked Mr. Stark's ass,_ ohmygod—"

But the convo is tuned out as soon as Shuri laughs at Peter falling.

She looks like Princess Leia in  _A New Hope_ , with double the energy and twice the wit (if that were even possible) and she smiles at Michelle like it's spring again.

Maybe it is.

 

 

But she could never do that to her.

MJ is not stupid. No matter how much she seems to like being around her, she knows Shuri is just being polite. They have the same friend group, it's logical they'd at least pretend to be friends.

Besides, that's all they can ever be, unless Michelle suddenly wants to be homeless.

Shuri wouldn't even like her like  _that._

Shuri doesn't even like her as  _friends_ anyway.

Her arms feel a little sore, but she needs to vent to someone, anyone, and if no one will listen then she'll keep hurting anyway. 

 

 

"Michelle, can I ask you why?"

Shuri sounds so disappointed in her. She's ashamed of being friends with her, Michelle can tell.

Still, MJ shakes her head and whispers, "I dunno."

Shuri's hands are soft, but her eyes examine her arms with calculating eyes. They are the eyes of a scientist; she sees them in Peter sometimes, when he's spent too much time with Stark and laughs like him.

Still, Shuri's hands are steady; they carry with them the quiet and silence Queens outside her bedroom.

"If you wanted to," she says, still busy bandaging Michelle's mistakes, "I could fix them. Like  _really_ fix them." She looks at Michelle and it suddenly hits her that Shuri has never felt the cold like she has, drowned in the dark like she has. "Back at home, it could be done in seconds."

(How could she understand? She was light, air, warmth, spring and summer to her darkest winters.)

Michelle stares at her for a few seconds, an easy smile on her face. "That's not gonna fix anything."

"We can fix it, MJ. Together."

Shuri grabs her hand so tightly, so carefully, and MJ might just start crying.

That's exactly what she does, actually. Leans against her shoulder, holding onto her friend, sobbing as quietly as she could as they watched the stars from her bed.

Shuri's hands are soft as they run through her tangled hair, but her eyes are now gentle; not the eyes of a scientist, but the eyes she sometimes recognizes in Peter when he comes to school sore after a hard battle but grinning like the nerd he is.

The eyes of a hero.

Michelle holds onto her tighter. 

 

 

Summer vacation comes rolling around once more, and Shuri has to return to Wakanda. She has Michelle prom _ise me you will not hurt yourself anymore, promise me you'll call every day, promise me—_

It's a little overwhelming. Ned tells her Peter gets like that sometimes; the world sometimes is too much and you need to hide from it under a pillow fort. That's just how things are. It doesn't make Spider-man less of an Avenger. It doesn't make MJ more of a lost cause.

She just needs to take it slow.

She keeps her promise though. She likes talking to Shuri, watching her invent new prank shoes for her brother and then acting clueless when the king of Wakanda ends up glued to a wall. They text each other every day anyway.

When August comes by and Shuri returns, she holds her tightly and laughs for the first time in months. 

 

 

And of course her dad finds out.

About the kiss she gave Shuri that December night. 

 

 

Peter takes her with the Avengers. He knows what it's like to lose your home; last year, when May had— Tony took him in. And the rest of the Avengers, despite their inner struggles, still loved him so much. MJ's worried it won't be the same, she's not a superhero, but Natasha Romanov looks at her for less than a second before grinning and claiming her as her New Spider-child.

(Apparently that's a lot, according to Peter.)

 

 

She starts dating Shuri.

She doesn't know how it'll work; they're so different. They're so far apart; Shuri's often busy in California, or back in Wakanda, and MJ's stuck in good old Queens, sometimes training upstate or in therapy (yes that's a thing now, Nat doesn't want any spiderlings struggling with their feelings around the complex). But they try. 

Even when MJ's feeling like death, she at least calls Shuri from underneath a blanket fort and falls asleep to the sound of her work. Even when she wants to drown under the rain, she gets home safe and sound and texts her girlfriend (heck yeah!) from inside her closet. When one visits the other, they hang out and go out on cute dates or just stare at the stars and listen to soft music. 

Or watch vine compilations. That works too.

But sometimes...

Sometimes the world feels like too much. Her chest is heavy, she can barely stand living, and she winces when someone talks to her.

So she reaches home, locks her bedroom door and flops onto the bed. Closes her eyes and keeps the tears back. That's how it's always been, ever since she was back with her parents, before having Shuri or a family that loved her. And she doesn't think anyone, not Peter nor Ned, nor Shuri or the Avengers, can change that by now. Because no matter how hard she tries to convince herself, no matter what her therapist says, she's not worth all that.

But Shuri sneaks into the room and wraps her in blankets every time, spoon-feeds her strawberry ice cream and they hold each other in silence.

Sometimes Shuri will cry too. Sometimes it's MJ who does the saving, sometimes she's the one who tiptoes into her room and whispers what she did that day to her, sometimes she just listens to her girlfriend's worries and fears, and when she finds her curled up on the kitchen at three A.M. she doesn't say anything besides helping her finish that smoothie.

And maybe, MJ thinks, maybe things can get better.

(Shuri knows what's coming. She's been training, building, improving, same as Peter, same as MJ, and even though the grown-ups still treat them like they're too innocent for the truth Shuri  _knows_ )

Maybe they'll survive. Maybe they can make it through.

Together.

**Author's Note:**

> DONT YALL DARE SLEEP ON HAYLEY KIYOKO. EXPECTATIONS IS OUT YALL BETTER SUPPORT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!11  
> anyway i wrote this last night at 3 am


End file.
